Welcome to the Piano World Piano ForumsOver 2 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

I am delighted to introduce our 31st quarterly AB Forum “Beginners and Beyond” Recital! So, pull up a chair and have a listen.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask the audience to please refrain from commentary in this recital room.

A separate room has been provided for the purposes of intermezzo discussion. Please take any and all comments to the General Discussion Room.

Thank you!

In addition to the zip files linked below, mahlzeit has added a feature to his program that creates an online streaming player. Just click on the link to hear all the recital pieces without having to download the zip files:

For the convenience of forum members, mahlzeit's program has normalized the files for consistent volume and standardized the ID3 tags in a collection of zip files. This makes it easier to create personal CDs and playlists.

Let me express my greatest thanks to some very special people: mr_super-hunky for coming up with the idea of our online recitals, which have proven to be more successful than any of us ever dreamed; LaValse for hosting the recitals for so long and then devoting hours of programming trouble-shooting making the transition to Frank's servers; Frank for agreeing to host the recital now that it's gotten so big; Copper for trouble-shooting help and the Order of the Red Dot; Sam S. for his terrific AB Forum Recital Index and also devoting hours to programming trouble-shooting; and last but not least, mahlzeit for writing the absolutely fantastic web-based recital program that we are using. THANK YOU MAHLZEIT!!!

This is the second of the Bach Inventions I've learned; I love these pieces but they are very exposed. With just the two voices and little, if any pedal, they show every slip, every minor hesitation and poor dynamic choice. They can also be played in a large number of ways which means my way will always be wrong to a certain percentage of the population. This is a slower rendition of the piece, urged by my teacher. I've played it quicker too but unlike the D minor, I feel this works well with a slower pace.

The main point of this Invention, from a teaching perspective, is that the subject is slightly off the beat and the counter-subject is on the beat. For this reason I have attempted to make the subject quite distinct and I hope you will pick this up. But I'm also aware that this can lead to a certain monotony of style in the piece and that's why I'm not sure this submission is my best.

Since my attempt at a slow passionate song in the last recital turned out quite bad, this time I chose a short upbeat song - a little jazzy tune by John Kember that I found in the beginner section of Pianist magazine.The bass is very simple, yet it took me a while to sync the two hands in an acceptable way. Quite surprisingly - but maybe not so much, since I spent a long time on it - I can actually play this song faster than my current recording, but in the end I like this "lazy" version better, plus it's already so short!

For this recording I played with the settings in Garageband, choosing a "jazz sparkle" feel and a "small chamber" reverb, although my favorite version remains the one I play with my DP's vibraphone setting in the treble and drums in the bass! Okay, so I'm beginning to enjoy the recording process

I began looking at this around last Christmas. Although I am generally happy with development of it to date, it is a work in progress that will remain in my wheelhouse of daily practice for some time to come. This submission is a fair representation of current state at the time of recording, with some obvious misses.

Vazha Azarashvili is a 76 year old composer living in Tbilisi Georgia. His Nocturne starts with a beautiful melody in the left hand, and the right hand plays an accompaniment with quite a few discords, adding spice to the melody. The main theme is repeated in different keys, different dynamic levels and in different hands. After the big climax, the piece ends with a coda of octave arpeggios and a final group of descending sixths and fifths.

Tascam DR-08. Recorded each sinfonia separately. Merged and converted to MP3 using Audacity.

Technical feedback wanted:

Yes

Additional info:

Bach wrote 15 Sinfonias, also referred to as the "Three-Part Inventions", each in a different key. I chose my 3 favorite to learn, and played them in this order: No. 14 in B-flat major, No. 11 in G minor, and No. 15 in B minor.

No. 15 was tough; playing 32nd-notes in both hands and trying to keep them in sync was a real struggle. I've made progress on it over the past few months, but am not quite satisfied with that one. On the other hand, No. 14 turned out better than I expected (even though left hand trills are no fun), although a bit more legato in places would certainly help. And I just love No. 11. To me it was the easiest but also the most beautiful of the three.

To hear a really gorgeous version of these, listen to Janine Jansen's album "Bach Inventions & Partita", which uses violin, viola, and cello for the three parts. You can listen to it free on Spotify (spotify:album:1GOfaRKkTcJCgSAkTAvcPi).

Written in 1829, this opus appeared in august 1932 in London, originally titled "Original Melodies". Mendelssohn's sister Fanny wrote similar pieces.I played this just a few hours before going on holidays halfway july, knowing that it would be recital time in a few weeks and that I probably would have no more time on this piece.As with most pieces, Mendelssohn's notation suggests to not use pedal anywhere except in measure 25 and the final two measures. Previously I played it that way too. But this time my teacher thought that the melody voice did not sing enough if I did not use the pedal, so do use pedal everywhere now. You can hear this in the middle voice, where the arpeggio's become a chord instead of staying separate notes.As with the previous Mendelssohn, it was a bit hard to decide on the right tempo for an 'andante con moto' feeling because the fast notes in the arpeggio give a nervous feel to it. But using the pedal seems to make the sound more relaxed, allowing to push the tempo to an actual andante for the melody line without feeling rushed. I would like to try this on Mendelssohn's own piano without pedal, I heard that the dampers were not very good particularly in the bass region. The falling melody lines and seufzer suggest sadness. But the piece is in E major which is not dramatic and has these pretty fast arpeggiated chords below it which make it quite light. The ornament in measure 5 also adds to the lightness. When the piece finally goes in to E minor halfway, the melody changes into a rising line. After a simple cadence we enter into maybe the saddest part of the piece. Harmonic progress stops briefly, Mendelssohn applies pedal for the first time, and we change to pianissimo (hard combination). Two long stretched seufzer follow. But right after that we go immediately back to the main theme in E major, and a long falling line brings brings a restful end.

Learned classical piano when I was a child but stopped when I was about 13 or 14 years old. Did not touch the piano for some 35 years until about three years ago. Am not currently taking lessons with a teacher but would like to work with one in the near future. It is, unfortunately, hard to find one in my area.

First, I would like to thank hotcat, TX-Dennis, and aTallGuyNH, the last three members who gave generous comments on my recital submission last May. Thanks so much for your kind words and encouragement!

My August recital submission is the third Chopin piece I've learned and recorded since I relearned the piano as an adult, but the first that I've submitted to the ABF recitals. I was particularly drawn to its varied moods, and was challenged by the fact that six of the seven notes of the scale were in sharp. My fingers spent most of their time on the black keys! Since I don't possess the adequate music theory background and language to describe the piece by myself, here is a Wikipedia account of it:

"Composed in 1832, it is a technically challenging piece in A-B-A form, in 2/4. The first section, Larghetto (mm.40), features an intricate, elaborately ornamental melody over an even quaver bass. The second section, labelled doppio movimento (double speed), resembles a scherzo with dotted quaver-semi quaver melody, semiquavers in a lower voice in the right hand, and large jumps in the bass. The final section is a shortened version of the first (14 bars rather than 24) with characteristic cadenzas and elaboration, finishing with an arpeggio on F# major, falling at first, then dying away."

I first heard this piece in the very first ABF recital I participated in back in Nov. 2011, and instantly fell in love with it. It has been on my list to do ever since. When my teacher suggested I do a Debussy piece I jumped for it!

Lunch was a Bratwurst and a beer. It is Swiss Confederation Day here, sort of like a Swiss 4th of July, so it seemed appropriate.

A beautiful Nocturne, in ABA form. The A section is dramatic, with sudden changes in dynamics and an embellished melody typical of a Chopin Nocturne. The B section is a quiet hymn.

Figuring out the ornaments was a major undertaking. I started with a Henle Urtext edition, which gave me no help. I got assistance from my teacher, but maybe my head was just too thick to understand what she said. At Summerkeys I discovered the Alfred edition, and the ornaments are much clearer and I was finally able to understand what was going on.

Lots of mistakes here, especially in the B section. You would think, after all these years, I could play some simple chords, but it's much more difficult that it looks, plus I was trying to connect the top note in the right hand - oh well.

One of the trickier pieces I've learned - but very satisfying. I remember looking at the chords at the end of the piece and thinking "Yikes!" This is the second Schumann piece I've studied and I find I love this period.

I recorded after breakfast on Tuesday, so that was All-bran cereal with walnuts and banana.

This is the fourth installment in my Message From Space pieces. For this one I wanted a vehicle, so to speak, for showing some of my landscape paintings. I have an on-going series of landscapes I call The far Side of the World, and the most recent are called Fractured Landscapes. All are fairly abstract with the most recent being very much so. So this piece sends our other world visitor off to explore the far reaches of earth. Needless to say, I wrote the piece with my paintings and You-tube in mind so I hope you have a chance to go to you-tube and watch. Technically, I had my usual hard time getting a recording I like. Every single one had mistakes I could not live with... including this one. Alas. But at some point you just have to say Enough! and go with it.

I believe this is my first classical recital piece. I was inspired to play this by Glen (Inlanding), who played it several recitals ago. It is a beautiful, flowing piece with appealing harmonies and melodies, lots of pretty arpeggios flowing gently up and down the keyboard. If you are interested in learning it, and are wondering how difficult it is, just Google it, and you will find this: the great majority of Youtube performances are by little kids! 'Nuf said!

Another David Lanz, because they are so pretty and so much fun to play. I bought the book way before I could play it. On my first recital here, I played a simplified version of Before the Last Leaf Falls. It's from the same book and I was curious how much harder it would be. (Very - it has block chords spanning a tenth.) At some point I tried playing Dreamer's Waltz to practice note-reading. After learning the first two pages, I showed the piece to my teacher and noted how I couldn't even read the next pages. Well, now I can!

I originally prepared this piece for the first European Piano Party, graciously hosted by Saranoya. She remarked how my piece made her piano sound so beautiful. I just had to play this for the recital! So this piece is for you, Saranoya. Keep believing in your dreams. Piano will get you through anything

Liszt originally wrote this piece in 1841 for voice and piano but re-wrote it many times over the years including versions for voice, for 'cello and piano, and for solo piano, of which this is the fourth version dated 1877, some 35 years later. He must have been very fond of it. I should dig out the lyric and see what pearls it offers.

The eponymous cell, or cloister, is situated on the Isle of Nonnenwerth on the Rhine near Bad Honnef. It was originally a Benedictine nunnery but was operating as an inn at the time of Liszt's visits. He used to holiday there often with his children before the family broke up. It has now been taken over by the Franciscans who today run it as a secondary school for girls.

I used to devote my summer holidays to a fortnight's stay in a remote Dominican priory studying first and later teaching calligraphy. There was a very spiritual atmosphere throughout the buildings and grounds. I have some very special memories of my visits there including playing the pipe organ in the chapel. Nonnenwerth must have been very similar.

The piece has haunted me for many years but it is only recently that I've heard a performance of it and developed sufficient technique to handle the arpeggios. I've not been the most devoted student of scales and arpeggios but none of the arpeggio work I did prepared me for this. It feels physically very different from my usual grind.

This is a long piece and I suspect that few of you will have heard it before so I append some programme notes to keep you interested should you choose to while away eight and a half minutes here. I know some of you enjoy reading background notes and I find it helps to make sense of unfamiliar music more quickly. _________________________

The slowly descending opening chords herald peace and calm and invite us to leave the turmoil of our quotidian struggles behind as we descend the entrance steps. It is not regular diatonic harmony nor is it modal. The pervading harmony is difficult to pin down in places and is a little other worldly, not in a disturbing way but as if we're removed from the world outside.

The chords fade into a narrow corridor of single notes that lead into the appealing main theme (0:50) that opens out and carries us, wafting its gentle skipping figure through the cloisters adorned, presumably, with the religious remnants of its past.

Liszt has achieved an unearthly remoteness by a harmonic progression from A minor to F minor. The F minor chord is F-Ab-C but Liszt is disguising the minor third F-Ab as an augmented second F-G# which fits the A minor harmonic scale. So the tones are familiar but the combination is unusual.

The theme is restated in octaves (1:17) in the dominant, E major, before the skipping figure trips down to an unsettled diminished seventh and is subsumed by silence.

A second theme (2:12), a distant cousin of the first, uses the same A minor tonality but with E as its tonic centre and bids us follow it to another place where our attention is drawn to a new theme, an ethereal whisper of breathtaking beauty (2:34). Liszt uses a whole tone scale, still in E, to allow the music to float above our heads. Is he visiting what was once the chapel or looking up at a crystalline ceiling? Perhaps he is contemplating for the first time the monastic life he would later turn to. I increased the reverberation for the recording to make this theme more spacious and give it a celestial translucence. Both phrases are repeated in octaves and again overcome by silence.

The middle section (3:36) is an anguished remembrance of reality and a cry of the spirit as we reflect on our lives with remorse and regret. I may have been a little heavy handed in RH here and lost focus in LH. Liszt has sprinkled accidentals freely around and in its first breath we find C, C#, Db, D, D#, Eb, E, F, G#, A, Bb and B all rubbing shoulders and lending a sense of foreboding before he pulls the rug from under the feet of the skipping figure and it tumbles into the abyss (4:17).

The music slowly rises from the depths and, like sunshine after a storm, the main theme returns (4:38) with such tear provoking tenderness in the tonic major and sweeps us up to the climax (4:58) given in double note arpeggios. This is the most riveting part of the piece for me. The restatement (5:06) is piquant in the supertonic B minor instead of the dominant we heard in the opening and we begin the gradual descent to the coda.

This passage, from the climax to the two-octave arpeggios (5:34), needed careful fingering (including swapping hands) and it is sheer bliss to now be able to play this section with all the technical difficulties lifted and the fingers knowing their way. Time well spent!

The heavenly whisper returns under treacherously delicate arpeggios (5:34). It's not quite a whisper the way I play it, I'm afraid, because I can't play the arpeggios delicately enough behind it yet but the thought is there. That's an improvement scheduled for the next time I cycle this piece.

The first theme whimpers (6:06), "Don't forget me", it echoes, then the opening chords return again, this time to see us out as we make a long, slow farewell.

As we look back the shadow of the main theme (6:49) is spread out almost unrecognisably in the distance as we leave the Isle and our sojourn becomes for us only a memory._____________________________

I'm quite surprised at the length of the piece; it's only four pages and quite scant looking. I've played it through only infrequently until close to the recording stage (it needs a lot of mental stamina) but I never realised it was so long.

This is possibly the most emotional, intimate and personal piece I've learned. There are some patches that sounded better and clearer in the pre-recordings and doubtless some wrong 'uns will have bypassed the defences but I have accepted some minor irritations with a view to spending more time on the Grieg recital pieces.

I still captured the atmosphere pretty well here and I'm very pleased with the result. I hope these notes keep you interested while you listen. It's a thrill to be able to post it here.

I originally wrote "For Em" a few years ago but this is a newly arranged version for the recital.This is the second take and there are plenty of bloopers but I really didn't fancy getting into doing more takes so here it is warts and all. Although stylistically it's firmly in the modern jazz camp there is very little improvisation included and it was 95% worked out beforehand. As I said, there are quiet a few mistakes from my ideal performance and I think I probably rushed through it in parts - that pesky red dot! Of course I do have the advantage in that no one except me knows what the right notes are. So, in the immortal words of Eric Morecambe I present "For Em", all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order :-)

Played by ear using the F.O.A.M method. (figure out and memorize). AKA "noodling".

Instrument used:

Mason & Hamlin BB

Recording method:

Zoom H2 balancing on the rim of the piano. I haven't dumped it....yet!

Technical feedback wanted:

Yes

Additional info:

I played this piece by listening to it several times until the melody was ingrained in my mind. Then I hit the playback mode (in my mind) and I can hear the tune playing in my mind.

At this point I proceed to play it the way I want to (minus the massive amounts of mistakes). I don't mind the mistakes at first because they are easily corrected later with practice and repetition. My main goal is just to find the complete melodies on the keyboard and then adjust and fine tune over time.

The money I save on lessons and method books helps pay for things like a new spindle for my lawn tractor mower deck that I just busted off last week. And Amsoil 2 stroke fully synthetic oil for my small engines. Stuff like that!

Lunch was a bowl of raw broccoli florets and baby carrots from Sam's club along with a Ciabatta roll and some Crunchmaster multi grain seed and rice crackers.

After the last recital I wanted to bring something to this one with grandeur, a large difficult piece was needed. I played around with a couple and continued learning less striking pieces that help my continual improvement. About two months ago I started learning this Bach Minuet, and only a few weeks ago I was somewhat shocked when I realised this would be my submission. Grand in its simple genius, almost every measure contained something new and unknown to me. My hand could not stretch to the simple recurring theme, the tempo seemed daunting and the piecing together of disjointed sections was a nightmare. However getting everything to work just right has been such a joy and I am so pleased to present to my very small audience (mainly forum members) this work. While it is not mistake free and the dynamics are still in need of work, I think a seventeenth century gathering might take to the dance floor and not shoot the piano player. Lunch (and dinner) continues to be mainly dust as I am dieting.

Although this is only a portion of the song and the recording quality is painfully bad, I decided to submit it because it was a very rare chance for me to sit at a superbly maintained baby grand, the best piano I've ever played (by far), in a truly unique acoustical environment. The recording is from a ~6000 sq. ft. hall, about 100 years old, constructed entirely of wood aside from the concrete floor. I've never played in a world-class concert hall (of course), but I would expect that the reverb is similar. I wish I had better recording equipment (and chops) to do both the piano and venue justice, but hopefully some of that shine will come across despite the limitations.

A pic and more info on the venue are here on the AOTW thread: http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2126154/Re:%20Achievement%20of%20the%20week%20-%20.html#Post2126154

Also, I have an occupational hazard (as a father) that I am obliged to wear any jewelry made by my children and gifted to me at least until the end of that day, so you can hear a bottle cap bracelet clinking repeatedly. I didn't realize it was making all that noise until I watched the video the next day -- too late to record again at that point.

Re: the song itself, it is my very favorite of Billy Joel's songs, and I listen to it -- singing along with completely unabashed gusto, to heck with what my fellow commuters might think of me -- on an almost daily basis in my car. The intro is all that I've learned so far, and it's very slow -- about half of proper speed. It has a long way to go to be at a proper speed and rhythm, but I'm actually happy with this recording. There are some pretty substantial hesitations (these are much more painful on YouTube vs. the MP3 because you can actually see me fumbling about -- I'm watching and yelling at myself "B-flat, B-FLATTTT!!!... come ON already..."), and it is my usual overall rhythmic mess, but no jarring or cringe-worthy mistakes. Basically, this is the very best I can do at this juncture. Two takes, so I was very happy all things considered.

I was helping out at a day camp for teens, so I had something-or-another that was very forgettable for lunch, washed down by some seriously harsh artificially flavored iced "tea".

This impromptu is definitely my favourite of all Schubert impromptus. Beautiful, lyrical, elegant, full of colour, and deceptively simple.

I'm sure anyone who has attempted this impromptu will agree that this piece is insanely difficult to play well, even though on the page it looks pretty straight-forward. The main difficulty lies in controlling the balance between the singing melody and the underlying atmospheric texture. Although this recording is still not a perfect performance, I have to say I'm quite proud of myself for persevering through countless numbers of bad takes attempting to bring out the beauty in this piece.

I didn't think I was going to make this recital and the Grieg one, but at the last minute I decided that I wanted to submit this time. This is a recording of an arrangement that I first picked up when I started piano again several months ago, so it felt appropriate to post it here for my first recital.

One take. As is often the case with me. I really do try and treat this as a "recital" rather than a recording session. This piece gave me challenges. It sounded so easy when Richter and Ashkenazy played it! Well, isn't that always the case?? Very pretty melody that compelled me to practice. I had never heard this piece before it being assigned to me. My teacher said that Tchaikovsky wrote mostly for orchestra. Thus the difficult reaches in the piece. Be prepared for some interesting fingering!! Lovely harmonics. Have enjoyed bringing this piece to recorded capability!

This entered my repertoire a couple of months ago and the seniors love it. It's not quite as jaunty here as I was thinking, but at I did manage to get a take without as much clipping as usual. With this piece and a couple of others I've added this year I finally have an hour's worth of mostly (really) oldies, which I mix with Scottish and Irish tunes so I don't play the same thing at every seniors gig.

Practising not very much in the last months, just too tired and demotivated due to the job. I've not yet mastered the pedal for this piece, only in the first and last part. So, pedal is missing in the middle part. Also watch the youtube video.

This time I tried to come up with something with a happier mood. I also tried to record using my phone for the first time. While the video seems to be better, there are a lot of clippings in the audio. Sorry about that, I will have a better recording next time.